


Broccoli

by lostariels



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Grocery Store, Lena just wants her broccoli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 11:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12209967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostariels/pseuds/lostariels
Summary: After a long night of studying for finals, Lena just wants to get her broccoli and go back to her dorm, but with her bad luck, she finds herself on the verge of a breakdown in the middle of Walmart, until one of the employees comes to her rescue.





	Broccoli

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KatiexPC](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=KatiexPC).



            A pair of dark sunglasses hid her eyes even though it was past midnight and pitch black outside Walmart. The fluorescent lights washed out her skin, making her look deathly pale as she shuffled along the aisles in a pair of sweatpants, scowling as she scanned the signs, looking for the fresh produce section. Lena had her hands in the pockets of her MIT hoodie, and was trying to keep a low profile as she hunched her shoulders and walked through the store, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

 

            Finally, the rows of electronics and garden equipment, and racks of clothes and books, gave way to the groceries, and Lena cast her gaze around, looking for the vegetables. Her eyebrows were drawn down into a scowl over the frames of her sunglasses, and her lips were pressed together in a grim line – not entirely an approachable look, but it didn’t stop one of the workers from approaching her.

 

            “Hi, can I help you look for anything?” she asked, smiling brightly at Lena, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners. She looked entirely too happy to be working at a superstore in the middle of the night, and Lena’s defences shot up immediately, recognising the girl.

 

            “No,” Lena bluntly replied, her voice coming out sharper than she’d intended as she frowned at the girl.

 

            Her smile didn’t falter in the slightest, and she just gave Lena a small shrug, wrinkling her nose slightly as, if anything, her smile grew wider. “Okay, well I’m at checkout four if you need any help!” Lena just blinked at her from behind her dark lenses, her eyes narrowed slightly as she focused on the girls face, and the girl turned around and walked over to one of the checkouts. Leaning on the counter, she threw a ball of paper at a guy who was stacking tins of soup on a nearby shelf, and Lena watched her fall into a whispered conversation with him.

 

            Averting her gaze, Lena turned her attention back to the task at hand, stalking through stands of apples and potatoes in search of the broccoli. She wasn’t in a good mood, and after a night of cramming for finals in the library, Lena just wanted to get her broccoli and go back to her dorm, which was why as she wandered around the fresh produce section, she felt her frustration growing. There was no broccoli.

 

            The blonde haired girl had left checkout four and moved onto stacking apples, and she looked up as Lena stormed over to her, accidentally misplacing an apple and causing an avalanche of apples to roll off the stand. “Oh crap,” Kara said, scrambling to catch as many of the apples as she could and falling to her knees as she stopped them from rolling away. With an armful of red apples, she rose to her feet, giving Lena an embarrassed smile and trying to nudge the glasses up her nose, dropping another apple in the process. “Hi, um, sorry, c-can I help you?”

 

            “I left my glasses at home and I can’t see shit. Can you please tell me where the fucking broccoli is?” Lena asked her, her shoulders tense as she stared at Kara expectantly. She wore a badge with her name on too, and there was a little smiley face drawn next to it in black marker.

 

            “Oh, yeah, um sure. It’s just over there near the carrots,” Kara told Lena, dumping the apples into a crate of bruised ones, and turned Lena around, pointing out the orange blur to her.

 

            “Thank you,” Lena stiffly replied, glancing down at the hand on her arm with a frown. Pulling her arm away from the girl, she set off in the direction she’d pointed out, leaving the girl to pick up the rest of the apples she’d knocked over.

 

            “You’re welcome!” Kara cheerfully called after her, and Lena snorted slightly. The worst part was that the girl _genuinely_ seemed sincere, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to make polite conversation with a stranger when she was about do collapse from mental exhaustion.

 

            Walking over to the orange blur, Lena leant over the labels, squinting as she tried to make out the names of the produce. Pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, she scanned the row, stopping when she saw a pile of green, and eagerly reaching out. Coming up with a small avocado, Lena burst into tears as she clutched the fruit in her hand, overcome with emotion as everything came crashing down on her.

 

            At the sound of someone clearing their throat a few feet away, Lena quickly wiped her eyes and and sniffed, turning to scowl at Kara, who was staring at her with a look of concern in her eyes. “Sorry to bother you, I just, um, I saw that you were still, ah, standing here and I just- … are you okay?”

 

            “No, I’m fucking not okay!” Lena snapped, “I have four finals coming up and I’ve been studying _all_ day and I just want some fucking broccoli and all you have are these shitty avocadoes!”

 

            “They’re actually a very good … brand,” Kara quickly said, her voice growing quieter as she spoke, realising that Lena didn’t mean it literally. “I, um, I’m sorry we don’t have any broccoli.”

 

            “What kind of shitty store _doesn’t_ have broccoli?!” Lena yelled, gesturing widely with the avocado, before she threw it back onto the pile of others.

 

            Kara’s eyes widened slightly as Lena shouted, looking taken aback by the ferocity of Lena’s rant about broccoli. “Well, um, it’s … one o’clock in the morning. W-we don’t usually get deliveries until about six. No one wants broccoli at this time of night … usually.”

 

            “Well _I_ do!” Lena argued, her green eyes blazing as she sulked.

 

            “Um, I’ll see what I can do,” Kara said, hesitating slightly, “do you, uh, do you want to wait here or just … have a look around?”

             

            “Well unless you have broccoli hiding in with the clothes, I’ll wait here,” Lena curtly replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

 

            Shrugging slightly, Kara bit back a smile as she took in Lena’s MIT jumper and the old pair of sweatpants, her eyes sparkling with amusement behind her glasses. “Well, it’s not broccoli, but we sell some great sweatpants here, you know … if you were after some more.”

 

            At the blank stare that Lena gave her, Kara nodded, giving her a nervous smile, “right, well, um, you stay right here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. Okay?”

 

            “Whatever,” Lena muttered.

 

            “There’s also tissues over at my checkout if you’d like some … for your- yeah, well, just ask Winn if you change your mind. He’s the one stacking soup.” Blushing slightly as she rambled, Kara quickly turned around and walked away, leaving Lena stood near the stack of avocadoes.

 

\---

 

            “Winn!” Kara hissed, rushing towards him and yanking him out of sight of the girl who was glaring at the display of avocadoes, “beautiful girl from my physics class is crying because we don’t have any broccoli so I need you to cover for me, please.”

 

            “Wha- Kara, what’re you going to do? It’s past midnight, nowhere else is going to be open!” Winn protested.

 

            Shrugging, Kara’s forehead wrinkled in concern, “I don’t know, I think I might have some in my fridge. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

 

            “You’re going to give this girl your broccoli because she’s crying?” Winn asked, giving Kara a weird look.

 

            Rolling her eyes, Kara gestured helplessly, keeping her voice down as she peeked around the soup display to look at Lena, who was still standing there, looking irritated. “She _really_ wants her broccoli, Winn.”

 

            “Fine,” Winn sighed, “but if she starts crying again, I’m out. You _know_ that I get emotional when other people get emotional.”

 

            “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” Kara told him, giving him a quick wink as she rushed off, her hands going to the buttons of her work shirt. She burst out of the staff entrance at the back of store, slipping further down the side of the building, away from the cameras, and stripped off her work uniform to reveal the costume beneath. Stowing her uniform behind some of the empty crates outside the store, Kara shot off into the sky, making for her apartment. She was there within seconds, climbing in through her window and raiding her fridge, coming up empty handed. Cursing the fact that all she had in her fridge was a gallon of chocolate milk and half a dozen takeaway containers, Kara shut the fridge door. Fishing her phone out of the pocket on her suit, Kara flew back out the window and dialled Alex’s number.

 

_“Hello?”_

            “Hey! Sorry for waking you up, it’s important.”

 

 _“Is everything okay?”_ Alex asked, her sleepy voice instantly filled with alarm.

 

            Hesitating, Kara sighed, “yeah, I, uh, this might sound strange, but do you have any broccoli?”

 

 _“Broccoli?”_ Alex reiterated, and Kara made a sound of agreement, _“I mean, yeah, Maggie probably bought some. Why the hell are you calling me at … fucking_ midnight _to ask about broccoli?”_

 

            “Um, so you know that girl in my intro to physics class?”

 

_“Oh god, this is about a girl who doesn’t even know you exist?”_

            Kara wrinkled her nose, urging herself onwards as fast as she could, “well, she will if you give me your broccoli, but anyway, so she’s at my work right now crying because we don’t have any broccoli left, and I kind of told her I was going to get her broccoli. I think she’s stressed about finals, you know? So, uh, yeah, I need to steal your broccoli.”

 

 _“Kara, you’re three thousand_ miles _away,”_ Alex said, and Kara let out a nervous laugh as she slowed down, coming to a stop outside a window. Hovering in mid-air, she reached out to tap on it.

 

            “Could you please open your window?”

 

            A moment later, the window was being pushed upwards, and her sister’s annoyed face was looking up at her in shock. Spluttering, Alex moved to the side as Kara climbed through and went over to the fridge. “Kara, what the _fuck._ You flew three _thousand_ fucking miles to come and get some broccoli for your crush?”

 

            “She was so _sad_ , Alex,” Kara sighed, “please don’t be mad.” She made a quiet sound of triumph, coming up with a head of broccoli in a plastic bag. “Tell Maggie I’ll buy her a new one,” Kara smiled at Alex, kissing her sister on the cheek as she breezed past her. “I’ll see you next Saturday, sorry for waking you up. Love you!”

 

            Leaving Alex spluttering in the middle of her apartment, Kara shot off back through the window, pushing herself as fast as possible as she made her way back towards Massachusetts as fast as possible, the broccoli held carefully under one arm. It took her a few minutes, and then she was landing back outside Walmart, setting the vegetable down and quickly changing into her work uniform again, tying her hair back and putting her glasses back on. Taking a deep breath, she arranged her face into a warm smile and picked up the broccoli, before opening the employee’s only door and making her way through the back warehouse and into the store.

 

            It took her a minute to locate Lena’s heartbeat, not over near the avocadoes where Kara had left her, but in the clothing section, holding up two pairs of sweatpants and looking puzzled. “I’d go with the light grey ones,” Kara piped up, startling Lena, who scowled at her and quickly put both pairs back on the rack. “Here we go.”

 

            Lena’s eyes widened in surprise, and a smile lit up her face, “you actually got me broccoli!” she exclaimed, sounding surprised.

 

            Kara’s face lit up with a smile at the joy on Lena’s face, “I said I would.”

 

            “How?”

 

            “Um … my apartment.”

 

            Lena laughed, pulling Kara close and kissing her, before she pulled back and stared at her in shock, realising what she’d just done. “I-I, uh, I, um, sorry. I-I didn’t mean t-to do that, I just-“

 

            “You were excited?” Kara supplied, her voice coming out as a squeak as her cheeks turned pink.

 

            “I- well, yeah. Finals … you know.”

 

            “Yeah,” Kara agreed, giving her a small smile as her eyes sparkled slightly, “um, so I’m Kara.”

 

            Lena blinked in surprise, letting out a quick laugh, “I know who you are. You’re in my intro to physics class.”

 

            “You know who I am?” Kara asked, her eyebrows flying up in surprise.

 

            Looking slightly flushed, Lena shrugged as she ducked her head, “well, yeah.”

 

            “Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you … officially.”

 

            “Yeah, likewise,” Lena said, scratching the back of her neck as she cradled her broccoli in her arms, “so, um, sorry about the breakdown earlier … and the crying, and the … kissing.”

 

            Kara waved away her apology, giving her a warm smile, “anytime. Oh, I meant- um, yeah, no, it was totally fine. Happy to help.”

 

            Lena tilted her head to the side, frowning slightly as she looked at Kara with curiosity, an amused smile curling the corner of her lips. “Well, I’m going to go and, uh, cook my broccoli. Thank you again – seriously.”

 

            “No problem at all,” Kara said, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled brightly at Lena, “I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow then.”

 

\---

 

            Kara was half-asleep at her desk in the front row, exhausted after a long night of work, coupled with a trip across the country to fetch some broccoli for the girl that always sat at the back of the lecture hall that she’d never spoken a word to until last night – well, this morning. The sound of books being placed down on the desk beside her made Kara jump as she looked up, taking in familiar green eyes – this time, free of any of the puffiness of crying – and took in the hesitant smile.

 

            “Hi,” Kara said, giving Lena a bright smile.

 

            “Um, hi,” Lena greeted her, opening her bag and pulling something out, “this is for you.” Out of a paper bag, she drew out a head of broccoli, presenting it to Kara like a bouquet of flowers, and Kara burst into laughter as she accepted the gift.

 

            “This is the first time a girl’s ever bought me broccoli, I’m flattered,” Kara said, giving her an amused smile. Lena rolled her eyes, returning the smile as she slipped into the seat next to Kara, flipping open her notebook and turning her intense gaze onto Kara, who was staring straight back at her with a warm look on her face.

 

            “Well, I’ve always thought flowers were overrated anyway.”


End file.
